English Abstracts

Julia Paulus, Eva-Maria Silies, Kerstin Wolff (Hg): Zeitgeschichte als Geschlechtergeschichte. Neue Perspektiven auf die Bundesrepublik. Frankfurt am Main u.a.: Campus Verlag 2012.

Review by Sonja Dolinsek

In this anthology, which resulted from a conference, the authors question the relevancy and sustainability of contemporary historical concepts of interpretation, such as e.g. liberalization and structural interruption, for genderhistorical issues. Using a broad range of topics, this question is answered in a sophisticated and insightful way. The rather negative seeming result does eventually justify the consideration of how the relationship between gender history and contemporary history should be understood particularly regarding the formulation of new concepts of interpretation.

Alexandra Weiss: Regulation und Politisierung von Geschlechterverhältnissen im fordistischen und postfordistischen Kapitalismus. Münster: Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot 2012.

Review by Heike Kahlert

Alexandra Weiss’s monograph, which is unreservedly worth reading, deals with stability, change, and discrepancies of the order of sexes in the transformations of capitalism using the example of Austria. In doing so, she illustrates the masculism of the neoliberal notion and politics, analyzes the retraditionalization of the political in Post-Fordism, and reflects on perspectives of action of feminist politics under the conditions of the current statehood. At the center of emancipatory (gender-) politics, she sees the reestablishment of equality as a prerequisite for freedom in a democratic society. Lastly, the powerful social-analytical study convinces the reader with its compelling reasoning and pleasantly clear language.

Heike Kahlert, Christine Weinbach (Hg.): Zeitgenössische Gesellschaftstheorien und Genderforschung. Einladung zum Dialog. Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2012.

Review by Katrin Späte

With their edition of nine reconstructions, integrations, and revisions of sociological theories about the development and structural features of modern societies, Heike Kahlert and Christine Weinbach invite to a dialogue between social theories and gender studies. The analyses of the status of gender in classic works from Pierre Bourdieu to Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault to Luhmann show straightforwardly the lightness of grand thoughts and what they could accomplish if the ‘superstructure gender’ was considered. The “invitational texts” offer multiple suggestions for further research regarding everything “society as a whole” – even if most of it can already be found written elsewhere.

Heike Radvan (Hg.): Gender und Rechtsextremismusprävention. Berlin: Metropol Verlag 2013.

Review by Robert Claus

So far, gender as a relevant cornerstone of preventive action against right-wing extremism has certainly arrived in theory, yet practical approaches are missing completely. This anthology discusses the centrality of the category of gender for right-wing extremist worldviews and, for the first time, summarizes the current state of academic discussion on gender-reflecting preventive work. The attempt to pave the way for the transformation into practical areas of application through conceptual framing does, however, succeed only to some extent and leaves some questions unanswered.

Christine Kurmeyer: Mentoring. Weibliche Professionalität im Aufbruch. Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2012.

Review by Heike Kahlert

Christine Kurmeyer’s social-psychological dissertation contributes to the exploration of the benefits of mentoring programs. Based on the example of a mentoring program for female graduates of natural and technical sciences who are transitioning into employment, she examines the inner structures and mechanisms of mentoring relationships using eight individual case analyses. However, due to considerable weaknesses in the presentation of the methodological approach, the findings can only insufficiently be applied to more general developments regarding the transformation of gender stereotypes and gender relations. Furthermore, due to her activities for the advancement of mentoring measures, the author occasionally lacks a critical distance to the subject matter, so that the new insights remain limited.

Gabriela Signori: Von der Paradiesehe zur Gütergemeinschaft. Die Ehe in der mittelalterlichen Lebens- und Vorstellungswelt. Frankfurt am Main u.a.: Campus Verlag 2011.

Review by Claudia Daiber

Gabriela Signori’s research paper discusses the institution of marriage as a form of community between woman and man in medieval times and in doing so, covers the range from sources within history of ideas, to legal arrangements and the underlying scientific circumstances, to forms of culture of remembrance. She illustrates connections between the three realms and analyzes fields that have not been dealt with scientifically to date. This results in a sophisticated overview of the pertinent discourses in history of thought, their prolific implementation into the social reality of urban culture in late medieval times, and their materialization within the frame of a culture of remembrance, which assumes a time continuum that transcends death.